TVSquad

You would think that the early, painful demise of The Nine, Kidnapped, Smith, Six Degrees, and other new dramas this season that there would be more comedy pilots picked up for the 2007 season. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, that's not the case.

Except for some solid buzz from a handful of comedies, including ABC's Sam I Am, ABC's Cavemen and Miss/Guided, and several shows at CBS, it looks like more dramas will make the schedule, including NBC's Bionic Woman and Journeyman, ABC's Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies, CBS' Babylon Fields, The Man, and Viva Laughlin. The new Jimmy Smits drama might replace Close To Home on Fridays, while FOX has the much-hyped Sarah Connor Chronicles, K-Ville, and Them.

Oliver Platt, last seen in the Showtime series Huff, will star in the ABC comedy pilot The Thick of It, about workers for a low-level congressman. The show is executive produced by Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz and based on the British comedy of the same name.

Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars) will join previously cast Tim Daly and Taye Diggs in the two-hour Grey's Anatomy episode meant to serve as a springboard to a possible Grey's Anatomy spinoff.

Steve Howey of Reba has been cast in The Beast, about a womanizing veterinarian who hates animals. Tucker Cawley, a writer and executive producer for Everybody Loves Raymond, will also write and executive produce the comedy pilot for FOX. The series is based on the British comedy Beast.

Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick, along with writer John McNamara and director Jonathan Mostow, are bringing a new sci-fi thriller to Fox.

Entitled Them, the project is based on Michael Oeming and Daniel Berman's graphic novel Six. Taking a page from Battlestar's metaphorical take on the war in Iraq, Them will be working the sleeper cell angle. The premise of the show involves extraterrestrial terrorists who take on the shape of humans. Their mission is compromised when they begin to acquire human emotions, which act like a drug on them. Eick reported to Variety, "Them is about the war on terror, writ large."

In addition to Them and his continued work with Battlestar, Eick is working on The Bionic Woman for NBC.

So excited for Them. Not so excited for The Bionic Woman.

My question to AMC is: how many times can a person watch The Fly in one week? Looking at your schedule, I see it's on at least three times. And it's not even the classic original, it's the 1986 remake (and it's sequel, The Fly II).

It's time for AMC's annual Monsterfest. This year (October 22-31) is the 10th Anniversary of the horror and monster marathon. There are certainly some great movies here, such as the Universal Dracula, Wolf Man, Mummy, and Frankenstein flicks, but even those can get a little boring when you're showing them 9000 times during the week. Do you not have enough great horror/monster movies in your library? Am I really going to have to sit through Gothika, Rodan, Island Of The Burning Doomed(!), and Pinata: Survival Island?

You're showing Them!, one of the great monster flicks of the 50s, but why are you showing it only once (October 24 at 7:30am) when you're showing Children of the Corn four times? Gah.